FacePalm Monday: Reece’s Rainbow Russia Announcement

Sometimes, a FacePalm moment just can’t wait until Friday. This announcement by Reece’s Rainbow was made today. See here and pasted below. Remember that their grants are supposed go to those children who are legally available NOW. Isn’t that supposed to be their point… get ‘languishing’ kids with DS and other severe disabilities out ASAP?

“This weekend, we at Reece’s Rainbow have made a very painful decision to putting waiting Russian children on hold. The situation in Russia continues to drag out, and it is not looking good for Russia re-opening to foreign adoptions any time in the near future. We just can’t continue to accept grant donations and inquiries for these waiting children.

The children who have grant funds raised will have their donation links removed, but remain on the site with a note in their profile. We are NOT reallocating existing grant funds at this time. No children are being deleted, only removed from the Waiting Children categories. Existing grant funds are clearly marked on the profiles for children who have grants.

PLEASE CONTINUE TO PRAY FOR THESE CHILDREN AND ALL OF OUR FAMILIES WHO ARE STUCK IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS. I can’t even put into words how horrible it is to have worked so hard to FIND all of these children, and then to have to pretend they don’t even exist. We ask your prayers for strength, courage, and wisdom. Praise Him for the opportunity to save as many as we have. Praise Him for the chance for better care and true social change to finally begin in Russia. Ask Him for courage to bear these coming months, filled with heartache and a sense of loss, but with the hope of CHANGE.

Reece’s Rainbow will be here when and if these children need us again.

Andrea Roberts”

So, let’s get this straight…they will continue to share private information about Russian orphans even though they admit it is CLOSED AND they will “hold” the money for these children. They won’t reallocate the money to kids desperately needing adoption who are available? Is that what Jesus would do?

“It is a legal battle they are waging. One that requires attorneys and documents and extra trips and a whole lot of unknowns.

It is unprecedented what they are doing.

Nothing can compare.

It is HUGE and CUTTING-EDGE and SCARY and I have been watching the quiet, behind-the-scenes story unfolding behind closed doors with held breath and fervent prayers.”

The legal battle Julia references is one that five RR PAPs are bringing forward in the European Court of Human Rights. It is described as follows on PAP Whitney Stephens blog:

“We joined the European Court of Human Rights case, so we’re basically suing Russia on behalf of Dasha Meg. The claim is that she has a basic human right to a family. We met her, we love her, we bonded with her, and we promised her we’d be back to be her mama and papa. Now Russia isn’t allowing her the chance to be in a family. It’s yet to be seen how Russia will respond to the lawsuit. Please continue to pray that something will allow us to continue our adoption. Our sweet girl. I just can’t even think about what will happen if we’re not allowed to proceed. She deserves a family!!”

Although I’ve no way to prove it, I suspect that RR will be using these funds to cover the costs associated with this lawsuit in the European Court.

If this is the case, I wonder how the IRS feels about it? RR is a registered 501(c)3 charity but its mandate is to raise awareness and assist families in adopting LEGALLY adoptable kids with special needs… not launch tilting-at-windows lawsuits.

I note that fundraising seems to be very, very slow for this adoption. They announced their campaign on Christmas Day, and they’ve raised less that 4% of their goal so far. Well, they DID impress enough people with their altruism that three Sunday School classes at their church provided “abundant” Christmas gifts for their children.

But for the most part, people aren’t biting. Perhaps the market has dried up due to donor fatigue, or maybe the fact that this is a direct, non-tax-deductible gift to the PAPs PayPal account is making people think twice.

All kinds of illegal/unethical actions on the part of RR and their alcolytes:

RR APs merrily brag about their successful (albeit illegal) efforts to photograph Ukrainian orphans and provide the photos so that RR can “advocate” for them on their website. This AP took photos during one of her many visits with little Sara, the Ukrainian baby girl with DS who is now her daughter:

“I needed to help. I was curious to know which other little faces listed on Reece’s Rainbow were there? After that meeting I asked Yulia, our facilitator, to find out which boys he was talking about. I also asked if it would be possible to meet them and take new photos, because I knew that I could help by getting new pics…”

…. In the meantime as she was being fed, Mark and I quietly walked around the nursery. We peeked at the other little babies as they laid in the play pens/cribs. Each one looked at us with curiosity. Some smiled, some were sad. Then all of the sudden my eyes met another little boy who I had recognized. I even called him by name. I quickly summoned Mark over and told him to quickly grab the camera and start filming . “This is baby D. This is baby D from Reece’s Rainbow.” Lucky for this little guy, Mark was able to record a brief video of him and take a few pics. He was adorable and I have to say that his Reece’s Rainbow pic did not do him justice. He was much cuter and soooo sweet! I immediately looked at Mark and said, “Are you sure you don’t want twins?” I was ecstatic that I finally got to meet one of the boys. I was so excited to get back to the apartment so I could send RR these new pics. Again, I just knew that if I could get new pics, I could help these boys find families. Sometimes that’s all it takes is for someone to see updated ones and to know that someone has met this child. I said earlier that baby D was lucky that were able to take new pics and video because after RR did receive them, they knew immediately who to show them too. It was a family who otherwise would have never considered baby D but after they had seen these new pics and videos, they were interested. I told them to give this family my info. and email and I was happy to answer any questions they had for me. That same day I did get an email from them and I quickly responded. Their next response was that they were going to pray about this little boy to know if he was the one. The next morning I awoke to find an email stating that they are indeed going to commit to this little boy. So I am happy to report that baby D has a family coming for him and soon (hopefully this month or April) he will be home. What a lucky little boy or was it fate!? Whatever it may be he was 1 down, 3 more to go! ”

It appears the RR facilitator Yulia is in on this illegal little scheme. Perhaps she took lessons from the allegedly corrupt/bullying RR facilitator Serge??

From reading the blog post you linked to, it seems plain that many Ukrainian orphanage staff workers are perfectly aware of what’s going on when APs take photos of children who aren’t their own. Not only do they turn a blind eye to the illegal picturetaking, uttering not a single rebuke, but they remove children’s hats and hold them up so the APs can get a better shot!

It’s not hard to imagine that at least SOME Russian orphanage caregivers are equally accommodating of this illicit photography, rationalizing that it helps the children in their charge get a better life. And I suppose it does for some.

Unfortunately, it also leads to unprepared PAPs falling in love with a cute photograph and adopting a child whose needs they’re completely unable to meet– which results in abuse, disruption, and occasionally death.

‘Spose we should share a link to ‘The Stormy Side of the Rainbow’ with this AP? She has enough sense to recognize pursuing another adoption right now would be a bad idea; she might be open to considering the warning and passing it on to the PAPs of “D”. That way, if they decide to pursue this adoption, they’ll at least be forewarned against “photo fantasizing”, and may have more realistic expectations.

Sadly, I don’t think it would help – you really can’t save these people from themselves.

To me, the MOST disturbing aspect of this (obviously well-intentioned) do-it-yourself advocacy is that so many of the kids listed on RR are NOT legally available for adoption. This leads to RR PAPs getting their heart set on a particular unadoptable kid… and praying the bioparents relinquish their rights to their beloved biokid so that the PAP can get their greedy little hands on THAT specific child.

It is illegal and immoral to want to take a WANTED kid away from their family – but it doesn’t stop RR PAPs. Once again, my bible seems to be missing the page where Jesus directs us to coerce parents into giving up their children. I fail to see how the bible verse directing folks to care for *orphans* applies to a child with a family, i.e. NOT an orphan.

“There is apparently going to be a trial to decide if the [biological] aunt [of the Ukrainian boys they want to adopt] gets custody. [RR PAPs Pattersons] don’t know the date of her trial, but it could be this week. (Someone at the SDA office apparently mentioned her trial is this week.) Would you please join me in praying that if God wants Matt to visit with the bio aunt, that He would move mountains to make this happen?!?! ”

Fortunately, the Pattersons saw the light and ended up adopting 2 different kids, i.e. ones were legally adoptable.

This RR PAP also ended up adopting a different kid, but blogged about how totally unfair and cruel it is that they were not permitted to adopt the Ukrainian kid they had their heart set on because “Nathanael’s case[RR PAPs] were told that it was his mother who refuses to allow him to be adopted”

This RR PAP/AP did the same thing, but ended up adopting the little boy whose family hadn’t yet relinquished their rights:

“[PAPs] leave here in the evening of the October 22nd. We will get to see our wonderful little man on the 25th and the court is on the 26th. Although I am extremely excited, I am also terrified. The family still has not signed the consent forms waiving their rights therefore giving us no worries. So, the plan is to go ahead with things as normal, pray the judge grants us custody of him, and spend the longest 10 days after that waiting and worrying the family is going to pick him up”

The two boys the Pattersons wanted to adopt weren’t on Reece’s Rainbow. They were hosted and they wanted to adopt them. They went back to their biological family. They did adopt 2 boys from Eastern Europe through Reece’s Rainbow around the same time.

Name, nothing here says “shut down adoptions, because they’re never successful.” Everything here says “The system needs to be reformed so all adoptions can be successful.” Remember, several of the people here are adoptive parents.

I’m pretty sure the SDA in Ukraine had a RR poster in their waiting room, but that was quite a long time ago… And I don’t think the point of this site is to talk about success stories. They get a lot of attention by agencies and on their own blogs.

It isn’t and it’s not. She and her hubby are spectacularly irrespobsible — to the point of posting nearly-nude photos of her 11 yo adopted kid on her public blog, going on and on about the intimate medical/personal details of her new kids lives because she doesn’t give a damn about their privacy/dignity.

And my personal fave: colleen allegedly STOLE from her rr mommy friends — she held a t-shirt fundraiser, took the $$ but NEVER SENT THE SHIRTS!

Update: She did post it, and asked– reasonably enough– for URLs to valid, objective sites proving that out-of-birth-order multi-child adoptions were associated with disruptions. I replied thusly:
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I’m in the process of re-organizing my links, so I decided to Google. What I discovered was that the phenomenon of going to other countries and scooping up two-or-more-unrelated kids at one out-of-birth-order is new enough (and feel-good enough) that it hasn’t been seriously scientifically studied. Also, unlike adoptions from foster care, most disruptions from international adoption take place on the down low, without ever coming to official attention.

However, the inferential case against such placements is strong. Older child adoptions are more likely to be successful if the child is the youngest in the family, so why not require this for all such adoptions?

I agree that development disabilities change the dynamics somewhat, but that “lack of sound research evidence” thing cuts both ways– you don’t know that it makes ENOUGH difference to change risk factors. And all else being equal, having TWO high needs kids to try to integrate into the family doubles the stress on you and your husband, while halving the individual adult attention that both emotionally-fragile children receive.

Now that you have them both, I hope that both placements work out for the sake of all concerned. However trying to entice other parents to follow in your footsteps by singing a siren song of how “blessed” it is to ignore rationality and traditional best practices in adoptions, I have to question your ethics. After all, it’s still early days to know if your experiment is going to succeed or not.

BTW, if you think I’M a troll, you know nothing of internet trolls. “Troll” doesn’t mean “someone who disagrees with what I’m posting and says so”.
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If anyone has any such links, I’d appreciate them passing them on to me.

I posted this on her site:
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*headdesk*

I don’t think it’s being a troll to warn you that out-of-birth-order, two-at-once-unrelated adoptions have a high risk of disruption, which is highly traumatic to the children you’re trying to “rescue”.

If it is, then it’s also “being a troll” to warn you that texting and driving is a bad idea.
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